Dear Friends, What does being a Christian have in common with pumpkins? God picks you from the patch, brings you in, and wash-es all the dirt off of you. Then He cuts off the top and scoops out all the yucky stuff. He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc., and then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside of you to shine for all the world to see. Happy Autumn and submitting to God’s grace!

Welcome New— and Familiar— Faces We are pleased to welcome back Fr. John Paul Klein, OMV who has re-joined the Lanteri Center staff after two years away doing parish work. He brings his enthusiasm for Ignatian spirit-uality and for the Green Bay Packers. We also are joined by our new Office Administrator Susan Konecny, who brings extensive business and marketing experience, along with a welcoming presence. Young Men’s Discernment Group Young people today have so many op-

Happy Autumn!

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Volume Issue

Fall 2017

“Be

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tions in life and so many distractions from making good decisions. The Lanteri Center is starting a young men’s group to offer instruction and wisdom on how to make major life choices regarding lifestyle, ca-reer and vocation. We will also offer one-to-one spiritual guidance in order to help them better discern God’s call.

Home Improvement We had to replace our Lanteri Center roof last January. Now, after 30 years, our old boiler finally went out this fall. We have recently installed a new one at a price of $31,000 and greatly appreciate any finan-cial help you can offer to help us offset the cost.

Thank you for your generosity to us in so many ways, especially your prayers.

Peace of Christ, Fr. Greg

Join us for our Advent Workshop: The Four Teresa’s Fri. Dec. 1st 7pm-9pm & Sat. Dec. 2nd 9am-4pm

Presented by: Patty Merlo, MPM Cost: $50 Location: The Lanteri Center

Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux, Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein), Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Through the centuries, many faithful men and women have been drawn to these four “out of the box” thinkers. Join Patty Merlo, MPM, who will help us discover how much we have in common with them: each one’s life, conversion, spirituality, & method of prayer.

The most recent graduates of our Summer Residence Program! Certified in the art of spiritual direction and giving of the Spiritual Exercises on

June 22, 2017. (left to right) Back row: Fr. John Paul Klein, Fr.

Greg Cleveland, Hilary Vos, Kay Davis. Front row: Cathy Hubka, Rebekah Eisner, Mary Everts, Marian Caguioa, Janice Belbey, Sharon

Van Der Sloot, Anna Wilkinson.

Upcoming events Please contact the Lanteri Center to register.

From the Foreword of Fr. Greg’s new book, Awakening Love

In my early twenties I discovered the Spiritual Exercises of Saint

Ignatius. I was especially drawn in those young adult years to Ignati-

us’ Principle and Foundation: the truth that we come from God our

Creator and that our goal is to return to him through the gift of salva-

tion. But even after thirty years of plodding my way through my own

spiritual development, using the tools Ignatius provides in his Spiritu-

al Exercises, I have to admit that I have always felt something vital was missing.

Recently at a conference where I was a presenter, a priest approached me and asked with a sincerity that was ex-

tremely moving to me, “People have told me that I am too intellectual. I need to learn how to pray from my heart. Can

you help me?” I stammered a few suggestions, but I knew that they fell short of what he really needed. My difficulty in

responding reminded me of the chasm that can exist between being a person of faith and experiencing the power of

God’s love radiating through your life. Though people, for example, find guidance and comfort in my own Surviving

Depression: A Catholic Approach, I have found that after reading it some still can experience a sense of separation

from God.

So when I was asked to write the foreword for Father Greg Cleveland’s Awakening Love: An Ignatian Retreat and

the Song of Songs I didn’t just read the book, but submitted myself completely to an experience of awakening love un-

der the author’s guidance, and I realized that Father Cleveland has put together precisely what we in today’s spiritual

environment most need. Awakening Love presents the Spiritual Exercises as a school of prayer through which we pre-

pare ourselves to receive the divine gift of prayer: the kiss of God. This “lover’s kiss,” Father Cleveland explains, is a

movement of the spirit felt at a very deep level of our being, close to the center, that bridges any distance and re-

moves any sense of separation. And isn’t this what we all long to know: that we and God are intimately united through

God’s overflowing and never-ending tenderness?

Awakening Love integrates the dynamics of Saint Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises with the intensity and tenderness of

the lovers’ intimacy recounted in the Song of Songs. Awakening Love speaks to the deepest core of our being through

the spiritual experience of God’s thirst for us and his nearness, leading us to dedication and commitment to God’s

dream for us in the world.

Awakening Love makes both the Song of Songs and Ignatian spirituality accessible and understandable to people

who are searching for God. Beginners will discover the riches of both the retreat experience of the Spiritual Exercises

and the mystical content of the Song of Songs. In these past decades, the Spiritual Exercises have become a welcome

and familiar landscape when we make retreat. However, some advanced pray-ers can grow weary of making the

Special workshop for Spiritual Directors only

Tim Gallagher, OMV: “Setting Captives Free: A Deeper Discernment of Spirits” March 24-25, 2018 9am-2:30pm daily. Cost: $45

Location: The Lanteri Center Based on his new book, Setting Captives Free, Fr. Tim will reflect on a deeper understanding of the First Week Rules, adding insights not included in his first

book. Participants will be invited to apply these teachings to their own personal experience and ministry.

A New Book! Fr. Greg Cleveland, OMV,

has written a beautiful meditation on the Song of

Songs, read and prayed with in the context of the Spiritual

Exercises.

Published by Pauline Books and Media. Purchase on-line at omvusa bookstore or buy it

through the Lanteri Center.

THREE or Four - DAY

SILENT RETREAT

April 26– 29, 2018 (tentative)

Abbey of St. Walburga, Virginia Dale, CO

This retreat is a great introduction to the

value of silence in your prayer and life in general. You will

meet daily with a spiritual director to discuss your prayer

and general experience. Come for either three or four days,

whatever fits your schedule & need. Cost: $160 for 3 days,

$220 for 4 days.

same Spiritual Exercises and are looking for new approaches and adapta-

tions of the traditional text. Awakening Love will bring fresh insight using the

Song of Songs, opening new horizons for the retreat experience.

For those of us who are intent upon growing in the spiritual life, the pro-

cess takes time. We may feel unsatisfied or empty or insufficient because we

feel we are continually collecting pieces of information—as though our spir-

itual life is a puzzle and we are being given only a few of the pieces. We hear

something in a homily here, read something else in a book, treasure a nugget

of inspiration shared with us by a friend, and try to understand our spiritual

development in this fragmentary light. Even after a lifetime of puzzle pieces,

we often don’t understand how things “hang together.” I have always felt

that somehow the process of the Spiritual Exercises helped me understand

how the few pieces of the puzzle that I had come to understand were a small

part of the whole picture. This is one of the gifts that the Spiritual Exercises

can give you: a framework for understanding your spiritual experience, one that is

robust enough to grow with you as you progress through the years.

Time is a precious commodity in today’s world. That’s why books such as Awakening Love are such a treasure. They

can cut the time needed for the reader to find this personal path of growth in the spiritual life in half, and maybe in

half again, when the reader surrenders to the process of the “retreat.” Father Cleveland has specialized in preaching

and directing the Exercises and concentrated on the study of both the Spiritual Exercises and Christian spirituality in

general for the past twenty-five years. As a good retreat master, Father Cleveland has succeeded in writing a book that

doesn’t tell us one way to follow in order to discover God’s love, his way, but mentors the reader gradually into surren-

dering to the way the Lord wants to show us how he loves us personally. Father Cleveland doesn’t give a list of tasks

but rather evokes in the reader’s heart a “longing for the beauty and immensity of God.” A good director will help us

apply the wisdom of the word and of the spiritual tradition wisely to our own personal situation, by hearing what God

says directly to us so that we can find God in everything. That is what this book does so well.

Here one finds a structure that guides the reader to an openness of heart that enables her or him to listen more

and more deeply to the Lord of their heart. And we can listen to that Lord everywhere.

With Awakening Love, Father Cleveland brings a splendid integration of Scripture, prayer, the spiritual tradition,

the writings of the saints, the legacy of recent popes, and a wholesome understanding of the dynamics of conversion

and sanctification to the field of retreat work and spirituality. A great book is like a tree that offers shade to anyone

who needs it. Awakening Love is such a tree. I am confident that many people will find their longing for the Lord met

by the Lord’s even greater thirst for them—and their soul will be stretched to infinite horizons.

—Kathryn J. Hermes, FSP

AUTHOR OF: CHERISED BY THE LORD: 100 MEDITATIONS, AND SURVIVNG DEPRESSION: A CATHOLIC APPROACH

Marc Chagall, “The Three Candles”

Lenten Arm Chair Retreat Spend this Lent learning how to pray with the

Word of God & experience spiritual direction.

You need only commit yourself to praying 30

minutes each day in your own home & meet-

ing with a spiritual director

once a week. Retreat begins

with a group meeting on Feb.

11, 2018 at the Lanteri Cen-

ter & runs through Palm Sun-

day. Contact the Lanteri Cen-

ter office to register.

416 22nd Street

Denver, CO 80205

L A N T E R I C E N T E R

F O R I G N A T I A N S P I R I T U A L I T Y

Phone: 303.298.1498

Email: lantericenter@aol.com

www.lantericenter.org

This is the will of God, your holiness.

1 Thessalonians 4:3

We’re on the web!

Visit us at...

www.lantericenter.org

JUST ASK SPARKY… Dear Sparky, The other day as I was leaving the Lanteri Center, I saw you in front of the rectory, sleep-

ing in the sun. You seem to be slowing down these days and taking life more easily.

What is changing for you? Signed, Deciphering in Downtown Denver

Dear Deciphering, I kept your question because, as I promised in the last issue of Reservoir, I would be an-swering your query with a “Part 2” in the Fall 2017. A further reason I am slowing down is just because I have no choice: age is finally catching up and nipping me in the paws. I am 14 years old now (or, as some enlightened humans would say: 98!) Most of us all know this experience, don’t we? I have heard it said that aging is not for sissies! It is, indeed, difficult and gets the better of us, physically. But spiritually speaking, we literally get the better! What do I mean? I have found that the aging process is the perfect way to grow in poverty of spirit. And, as our Lord said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:3). For me, to be poor in spirit means to know my limits and weaknesses, to realize the ab-solute truth of how much I am dependent upon God for everything. In other words, to act in humility. For me, poverty of spirit is also the freedom to desire the will of God be done in all things of my life; freedom from selfish desire, and detachment from all that is not of God. To be poor in spirit is to be humble and free. I have lost the ability to hear, which makes me very vulnerable. As a result, I have had to grow in trust: I now look more to others to guide me and watch out for me. I have had to

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